Capt Vikram Batra

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 6

It will be a journey for which Luv has waited for 20 years, to be at the same spot where his identical twin Kush sacrificed his life for the country — atop a 16,000-foot-high Himalayan massif along the Line of Control.
On Sunday, it will be exactly 20 years when Kush, Capt Vikram Batra, a resident of Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, sacrificed his life during the Kargil war (May-July 1999).

Vishal Batra, known in his family as Luv, will be there to mark his brother’s death anniversary. “I am going to ‘meet’ my brother, up there,” Vishal said just hours before he boarded a flight en route to Drass at the base of the peak in Jammu and Kashmir.
Vishal will be heli-dropped to reach Point 4875 (altitude of the peak in metres), now known as ‘Batra top’. “I had the option of climbing the peak, but the Army advised acclimatisation of at least one week, which was not possible due to time constraints,” says Vishal, who is a banker in Chandigarh.

At Point 4875, Capt Batra had led the assault by his ‘paltan’, 13 JAKRIF, to get it vacated from Pakistan army’s illegal occupation. In September this year, Capt Batra, a Param Vir Chakra recipient, would have turned 45.

Gen VP Malik, in his book ‘Kargil: From Surprise to Victory’, describes Capt Batra, who after killing four Pakistani soldiers in a hand-to-hand fight and capture of Point 5140 called his Commanding Officer and radioed the victory code: Yeh Dil Mange More…

A popular advertising jingle of the 1990s, the code was selected by Capt Batra during the pre-assault briefing by the CO, Lt Col YK Joshi (now Lt General). Point 5140, the highest occupied point on Tololing ridge, was captured on June 20. Lt Gen Joshi, awarded the Vir Chakra, will be on Batra top with Vishal. A climbing expedition of 13 JAKRIF will reach the same day.